Sari Robins - [Andersen Hall Orphanage] (25 page)

Drawing her close, he wrapped his arms around
her. “But you
have
been walking on your own. You established The Society for the Enrichment and Learning of Females—”

“But it’s not the same. I did it without my parents knowing about it until after it had been established. I hid it, Prescott. I hid what I was doing from them, for fear that they might try to stop me, and succeed.” Hugging him close, she inhaled his familiar musky scent and took comfort from his support.

“But you didn’t kowtow to them once you’d succeeded. And what of your business ventures?”

“My parents don’t know about what I’m doing with Henry. It’s all on the sly. It’s time that I stopped hiding, Prescott. It’s time for me to start living the life I want to live without cowering in fear. Or hiding behind a lie. I want to be more like you, Prescott, making no excuses for being who I am.”

He tensed. “But what if the consequences are too much for you to bear, Edwina? What if your father cuts you off? Not financially, but well, everything…”

“Like your grandfather did to your mother?” she asked gently.

“Yes. I’m not worth losing your family over, Edwina. Family is everything.” He swallowed. “If you lost them because of me, if you were cut off, well, I would never forgive myself.”

She sighed. “I can’t live my life by ‘what-ifs,’ Prescott. I need to find out what I’m truly made of. And how much my father loves me. And there’s only one way to do that: face the Earl of Wootton-Barrett.”

S
tanding in the shadow of a large oak tree, Prescott raked his hand through his hair and stared at the closed French doors to the parlor.

Blast! He couldn’t see a thing with the sun reflecting off the glass doors and Edwina and her father having moved to the other side of the room.

“So you’re a Peeping Tom, now, eh?”

Prescott jumped. “Oh, Sir Lee. You startled me.”

With his gold-topped cane, Sir Lee strolled down the garden lane to where Prescott stood in the shade. “I presume Lady Ross is in there with her father.”

Prescott nodded. “She…well, she said that she wanted to face the firing squad on her own.”

“Firing squad, eh?” The old gent’s gray brows lifted as he tucked his thin cigar into his mouth and puffed. Smoke billowed around him in a pungent cloud. “Wootton-Barrett does like to ride roughshod over people.”

“I should be in there…”

“Then why aren’t you? You’re not feeling toothless, are you?”

“I want to respect her wishes…”

Sir Lee snorted. “Now I know you’re in love.” Pulling a thin cigar from his coat pocket, he held it out, offering his own as a light. “Smoke?”

“No thanks. It would be a waste of a fine cigar.”
What is going on in there?
Reaching down, he grabbed his watch fob and clicked open the gold timepiece for the tenth time.
It’s been seven minutes already, yet it feels like three hours.

“As you please.” The old gent stuffed the cigar back into his pocket. Leaning on his cane, he jerked his chin toward the French doors. “So you think the Earl of Wootton-Barrett is a mite upset about your engagement to Lady Ross?”

“Why else would he race across the country on horseback?”

Pursing his lips around the cigar, Sir Lee puffed. “Why else indeed.”

“I bet he hardly even stopped to water his horse, unable to wait to rake Edwina over the coals for cavorting with the likes of me. Can’t sully the bloodlines, can we?”

“Is she telling him that the engagement is off?”

“No. She wants to make a stand…that this isn’t about me. But she
should
be telling him that it’s over, for at some point or another, she’ll come to regret this whole affair. She’ll come to regret…choosing me.” Prescott moved toward the doors. “I won’t let her destroy her life…”

Sir Lee grabbed his arm. “Isn’t that her choice to make?”

He shook his head. “I love her too much to watch her come to despise me. And she will, for staying with me will cost her everything. And that I cannot bear.”

Shrugging off the old man, Prescott stormed the French doors and burst into the parlor.

Edwina’s back was to him as she faced her father. A lesser woman would have been cowering in the corner when confronting the burly black-haired bellowing giant that was Wootton-Barrett. With his high black hat, pea green coat and darkened features he loomed over Edwina like a Goliath.

Edwina turned, her eyes red-rimmed and her lower lip quivering, yet she hadn’t shed a tear.
You show him your mettle!

The earl looked up and his eyes, black as coals on a broad craggy face, widened, then narrowed as they fixed on Prescott. “You must be the devil’s spawn I’ve been hearing about!”

Even from across the room, Prescott could smell horse, sweat, and a hint of Jockey Club cologne; the man must not have even refreshed himself before accosting his daughter. Prescott’s resolve hardened.

The earl shook his fist. “Get your grasping arse out of here! This is none of your damned business!”

“Actually, your lordship, it is. You see I want to settle your concerns, by informing you that I have no intention of marrying your daughter.”

“Bloody well right you won’t!”

Edwina’s face looked stricken.

Prescott stepped deeper into the room. “I’m sorry,
Edwina. But I have no title, no money, hell, I don’t even have my own name. I have nothing to offer you.”

Wootton-Barrett’s bristly brows knitted. “What are you about, Devane? Is this about a payoff? For if it is, I’ll not give you a blasted shilling.”

“I don’t want anything from you, your lordship. Least of all your daughter.”

Edwina seemed to sway on her feet and Prescott was immediately by her side, holding her arm. “Are you all right? Do you feel weak? Sick?”

She shook her head. “I’m fine, I was just taken aback by your declaration. I know how you feel about marriage, but…” She blinked as her eyes glistened with unshed tears. “I suppose I didn’t expect it to hurt so much hearing you say it like that.”

“The last thing in the world I would ever want to do is hurt you, Edwina. But the cost is too high and you know it would never have worked out between us.”

“I know nothing of the sort—”

“What do you mean the cost is too high?” Wootton-Barrett demanded. “She’s not paying you, is she?”

Ignoring the bellowing earl, Prescott whispered in her ear, “I can’t have you throw away your life for me, Edwina. I’m not worth it.”

“But this isn’t about you—”

“It is. Establishing the society, living life on your own terms, those your father can handle, but staying with me? That’s something he won’t abide.”

“But if I have to choose—”

Prescott shook his head. “I’m not worth losing your family over. Family is everything, I should know, I have none. And if you lost them, if you were cut off, well, I would never forgive myself.”

“You’re damn right you’re not worth it!” the earl bellowed.

Pushing herself out of Prescott’s arms, Edwina squared her shoulders and rounded on her father. “Don’t you speak to him like that! Prescott Devane is kind and considerate and as honorable a man as I’ve ever met!”

Prescott’s heart swelled at the way she was defending him.

“If I decide never to marry,” she continued, “then it’s for my own reasons, not for any lack on his part.”

A pit formed in Prescott’s middle. She’d decided
never
to marry? He knew this, Edwina had told him, and although it was completely illogical to be hurt by this intelligence, he was.

“You will marry!” the earl bellowed. “And not to a scurrilous dog like him!”

Edwina’s eyes flashed with fury. “Don’t you dare insult Prescott.” Her voice was low, angry. “You may criticize my actions, but don’t you dare defame a hair on his head.”

“Why you ingrate!” Wooton-Barrett shook his meaty fist. “To take up sides with a lecherous knave instead of your own father! You should be kissing my boot tips with gratitude for all I’ve done for you!”

“I am grateful, Father,” Edwina bit out. “But I’m a grown woman now—”

“Who doesn’t have an ounce of sense in her dippy head!”

“Now see here!” Prescott stepped forward, trying desperately to keep a rein on his temper.

The earl stabbed his finger. “Don’t speak until spoken to!” He turned on his daughter. “You’re an odd
one, always were. But it’s high time I stopped indulging your foolish fantasies that you can do as you please. You will marry Viscount Bellwood—”

Edwina’s face was awash in hurt and disbelief. “Haven’t you heard a word I’ve said?”

“And what it cost me to keep Bellwood still interested after all of your shenanigans!” the earl plowed forward as if Edwina hadn’t spoken. “The arrangements have all been made, the special license secured. You’re fortunate that I’m convincing enough to have him still take you!”

“Still take her?” Prescott screeched. “The man is the luckiest sod on the face of the earth!”

“I told you to keep your mouth shut! She’s my daughter and I know her worth down to the last bloody pound!”

Clenching his fists, Prescott closed the gap between them. “You obviously don’t know a thing about Edwina!”

“I know she’s better off without the likes of you! I know she’s cost me more headaches and far too many pounds to unload—”

“Unload? You speak as if she’s a bag of oats! She’s your daughter, for heaven sakes!”

“And I know what’s best for her! And it’s not you! She’ll be married to Bellwood by the end of the week.”

“The hell she’s marrying Bellwood!”
Or anybody else!

Besides me.

The idea was in his head before he could stop it; heady, enticing and ripe with the promise of happiness.

The earl brandished his fist. “You have no say in my
daughter’s affairs, you…
greedy guts!
If you try going near my daughter, there’ll be hell to pay! And you’ll be praying you’d never laid eyes on her!”

Edwina’s face blanched white. “Enough, Father! You cannot threaten him with harm! You push too far!”

Wootton-Barrett’s lip curled. “Bellwood’ll teach you to behave like a proper English lady. I don’t care if he has to beat the obedience into you! He’ll have my blessing to do it!”

Something deep inside Prescott went cold. Without thought, he slammed his fist into Wootton-Barrett’s arrogant nose.

The earl staggered backwards and fell onto the chintz sofa, blood spurting out his nose and all over his shocked face.

“Father!” Edwina’s eyes widened, then she rushed toward the toppled earl.

“See what an animal he is? See what you’ve caused?” Pulling a handkerchief from his coat, Wootton-Barrett held it to his face. “He’s a brute!”

Watching Edwina tend to her father, Prescott’s heart fell to somewhere beneath his knees and he might have staggered, if he weren’t so rigid with shock. He’d just cuffed Edwina’s father! There was no coming back from that. His misty hopes burned to ash.

Edwina shot him a glance. “Prescott should not have punched you, Father.”

His heart dropped even lower, if that was possible, as shame overcame him.

Edwina faced her father. “But you were egging him on, insulting him, threatening him and me—”

She was defending him? He looked up as a wisp of hope skated across his heart.

“One cannot insult a scrounger! This is the man you called ‘A gentleman in action if not by birth!’ As if there is such a thing!”

A gentleman? Edwina had said that? Hope budded within him. Still, he’d just corked her father…

“Threatening to have me beaten? Abusing a man who’s done you no harm?” A familiar fury flashed in Edwina’s gaze as she stood, glorious and proud. “Rules of conduct are very different when they apply to you!”

“I’m not the one who resorted to fisticuffs!”

“No, just threats and bullying!”

Wootton-Barrett’s face turned a nasty shade of red. “Why you impertinent—”

“That’ll be enough!” a voice called sharply. “Enough I say!”

Three sets of eyes turned toward the open French doors.

Leaning easily on his gold-topped cane as if seeing a bloodied earl was a common happenstance, Sir Lee nodded. “Wootton-Barrett.”

“Have this man arrested, Sir Lee!” Pushing himself up from the sofa, Wootton-Barrett waved the blood-spattered linen at Prescott. “He accosted me!” Turning to Prescott, he threatened, “I’ll see you hanged for this.”

“Hanged?” Edwina gasped, stepping over and gripping Prescott’s arm. Her face was drained of color.

Prescott’s mouth suddenly went dry; he knew that many men had been hanged for less.

Wooton-Barrett sneered. “He’ll swing for sure for striking me!”

Shaking his head, Sir Lee stepped forward. “As if you didn’t deserve it, Wootton-Barrett.”

“Wh-what?”

“I know what’s going on here.” The old gent’s eyes glistened and his craggy mouth pinched with sorrow. “All too well, I’m afraid.”

The earl’s eyes narrowed. “What the blazes are you talking about?”

“I sat in your place, thirty years ago, making the same pigheaded declarations, berating my headstrong daughter and abusing the man she loved.”

Prescott’s heart skipped a beat as the shadow of a notion slithered across his brain.

Sir Lee shook his head, his eyes watering. “Barbara was always a headstrong lass. Had pride a mile high, just like her father’s.”

“Barbara,” Prescott staggered. “My…mother…”

Swallowing, Sir Lee looked up, pain and grief evident in his green gaze. “I wanted to break her damned obstinacy.” Shaking his fist before him, tears dripped out of his eyes and trailed down his weathered cheeks. “But I only broke my family. And my heart.”

“What the blazes does this have to do with the fact that his man struck me?” Wootton-Barrett demanded. “I want him arrested, now!”

Edwina signaled her father. “Be quiet.”

Wootton-Barrett blinked, then blustered, “Don’t you speak—”

“Enough, Father! For once think about someone besides yourself!” Turning her back to the earl, she grasped Prescott’s arm even tighter and he was grateful for her support.

He was reeling…But it couldn’t be. It was too much of a coincidence, too much a dream…

Swallowing, Prescott held his hand out to Sir Lee. “What are you…what are you saying?”

Sir Lee brushed aside his tears. “I’m saying that thirty years ago I told my daughter that if she married the man she loved, then I would cut her out of my life. Had I known then what I know now, Prescott…”

“You searched my rooms…”

“Yes. I saw the Bible. I gave it to Barbara when she was a girl. The family name Devane was still inscribed inside the front cover.”

Prescott felt as if the world were spinning on its head. Dropping onto the settee, he pressed his hand over his eyes. “I don’t believe this.” He looked up. “You’re my…grandfather?”

The earl stood. “I don’t give a damn if he’s the Prince Regent’s only heir! He hit me!”

“Didn’t you hear me, Wootton-Barrett? He’s my grandson! And I’ve missed his whole life. I’ve suffered, more than you could know. I lost my daughter, lost my grandson, lost everything because
I—was—an—ass.
”

Sir Lee pointed his cane at the earl’s chest. “Can you be a bigger man than I, Wootton-Barrett? Can you be wise enough to know that nothing will stop these two because they are truly in love? That your inflexibility will damn you to a hell no father should have to endure?”

Edwina crouched beside Prescott, concern marring her lovely features. “Are you all right?”

Slowly, he shook his head. “It’s a bit too much to grasp…”

Hugging Prescott close, she murmured in his ear, “I’m here for you. Whatever you need. I’m here with you.” Her support was probably the only thing keeping him sane at this moment. Everything he’d known about
himself was a lie. Well, part of one. His name was really Devane…